How are the people of the Global South to reduce poverty while cutting carbon dioxide emissions to zero?
The Global North has powered its "development" with fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions. The Global South as expected to do the same.
Now Juliet Eilperin reports on the front page of the 10 March 2008 Washington Post that two new studies point to the need for humans not just to reduce carbon emissions, but to cut them to zero. How is poverty to be reduced while cutting carbon emissions to zero?
One study by Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution was published in Geophysical Research Letters. The other by Andreas Schmittner of Oregon State University was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Both are based on advanced computer simulations.
The temperature of Earth has already increased by 0.76 degrees C (1.4 degrees F). Under the business-as-usual scenario, Earth will warm 7.2 degrees C by 2100. Most scientists agree that even a 2 degree increase in temperature would very serious consequences for young people. This is in part because warming continues long after emissions stop. So, emissions must stop and soon.
If the Global South is never to have the benefits of the kind of fossil-fuel-based development that has been enjoyed in the Global North, will global tensions rise? Terrorism?
Should the parents' and grandparents' generations simply go on burning fossil fuels and let young people inherit a severely damage Earth?
I would like to hear some opinions on these questions. What do young people think? What do the parents and grandparents think?
Friday, March 14, 2008
Poverty and Carbon Dioxide
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1 comments:
As a parent and an engineer, I think we can drop CO2 and alleviate poverty. However, there may be a transition period where we use controversial and unpopular sources of energy (e.g., LNG, nuclear, carbon sequestration). Certainly we should use renewables now where we can, but these other sources will also be needed to buy time to resolve the energy storage issue that has plagued larger scale adoption of renewables.
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